'Zusmarshausen.' It is nearly the end of the war, and it has come to the Emperor's attention that the 'famous jester' (i.e. Knowing his prior life is now gone, Tyll asks Nele to join him as they leave the village forever.

Tyll's father is accused of witchcraft, which results in his trial, conviction, and execution. The reader encounters his father Claus Ulenspiegel, the miller of their town, who is not like the others: he is able to read, loves books, and desires to study the mysteries of the world. 'The Lord of the Air.' This chapter presents the actual beginning of the narrative. The performance culminates in a high-wire act, through which Tyll initiates a prank that causes violent upheaval. The inhabitants of the town recognize Tyll from his widespread fame, even though they had never seen him before. 'Shoes.' Deep into the Thirty Years' War Tyll Ulenspiegel arrives in a town where the war had not yet come, along with Nele, an old woman, and the donkey. The chapter 'Shoes' that serves as the novel's prologue tells a tale from the middle of the jester's life. Kehlmann does not narrate Tyll's story in a linear fashion. Between its initial publication in 2017, and its publication in English, Tyll had sold almost 600,000 copies in Germany. An English translation by Ross Benjamin was published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House, New York, in February 2020. The book was first published in October 2017 in the original German by Rowohlt Verlag. The book is based, in part, on the folkloristic tales about Till Eulenspiegel, a jester who was the subject of a chapbook in 16th century Germany, as well as on the history of the Thirty Years' War. Tyll is a 2017 novel, originally written in German, by the Austrian-German writer Daniel Kehlmann.

Tyll a novel